It's time to kill the argument that DPS abilities keep healers from healing.

[Sebazy]

Even if you are just playing casual content without any enrage, people say you are 'being lazy' and 'wasting time' if you are not dealing dps. That is the problem with having dps on healers. You are forced to use it and use it well, no matter if you are doing the most difficult ultimates or just laid-back story dungeons. It ends up controlling everything you do and every decision you make as a healer

I really don't get this argument though.

You could apply it to tanks, if you're holding agro, who cares what else you are doing right? Your job description doesn't cover dealing damage, that's for the DPS.

It could even be twisted as far as the dps themselves? Just want to sit there and press nothing but heavy thrust? Sure why not, it's not causing a wipe now is it? Why do I need to press my combos or use my cooldowns? The content doesn't require it. All it's doing is making the run slower. Much much slower

The fact of the matter is that you can heal most casual content with a CPM of around 6 assuming both you and your co healer are pulling your weight.

That's 1 button press every 10 seconds.

That's undeniably lazy. Sorry but it just is.

As for being forced to use it well. That's hyperbole. Plain and simple. Maintain your dot in casual content and very few people will care if you barely do much more than that.

[lisaa]

I really don't get this argument though.

You could apply it to tanks, if you're holding agro, who cares what else you are doing right? Your job description doesn't cover dealing damage, that's for the DPS.

It could even be twisted as far as the dps themselves? Just want to sit there and press nothing but heavy thrust? Sure why not, it's not causing a wipe now is it? Why do I need to press my combos or use my cooldowns? The content doesn't require it. All it's doing is making the run slower. Much much slower

The fact of the matter is that you can heal most casual content with a CPM of around 6 assuming both you and your co healer are pulling your weight.

That's 1 button press every 10 seconds.

That's undeniably lazy. Sorry but it just is.

As for being forced to use it well. That's hyperbole. Plain and simple. Maintain your dot in casual content and very few people will care if you barely do much more than that.

Tanks don't have to choose between dealing damage and playing their role. They gain aggro by dealing damage and mitigation can all be used for free (except for DRK but you can choose other tanks, unlike healers). But, if tank players do feel unhappy doing dps they are also free to voice their thoughts. For healers every gcd is a choice between dps and healing. And if you make the wrong choice it can wipe the group. No other role has to make this choice

As for being forced, a whm can deal almost as much as a dps in dungeon mobs. If you know that, how can you not use it? It would feel incredibly guilty knowing how much you could do and not using it. It would be griefing. That's what I mean by forced, even if one is sitting behind you telling you how to play. When I do casual content I hardly even get to heal, it's just dps dps dps, because anything else is slowing down the kill. I don't want to play green dps I want to heal. If we didn't have dps, even if it means only pressing a button every 10 seconds, that would be more fun

[Sebazy]

When I do casual content I hardly even get to heal, it's just dps dps dps, because anything else is slowing down the kill. I don't want to play green dps I want to heal. If we didn't have dps, even if it means only pressing a button every 10 seconds, that would be more fun

That's not the fault of us having any DPS kit, that's the fault of there barely being anything to heal in said casual content.

I'm 100% in agreement and I'd rather be healing as well, that's always been my jam. But I don't agree that pressing a button every 10 seconds is even remotely fun for any length of time. SE have simply chosen the path of making casual content as non challenging as possible and genuinely difficult to fail at.

[ASkellington]

Tanks don't have to choose between dealing damage and playing their role. They gain aggro by dealing damage and mitigation can all be used for free (except for DRK but you can choose other tanks, unlike healers). But, if tank players do feel unhappy doing dps they are also free to voice their thoughts. For healers every gcd is a choice between dps and healing. And if you make the wrong choice it can wipe the group. No other role has to make this choice

That's the whole reason why we like the healer role.

As for being forced, a whm can deal almost as much as a dps in dungeon mobs. If you know that, how can you not use it? It would feel incredibly guilty knowing how much you could do and not using it. It would be griefing. That's what I mean by forced, even if one is sitting behind you telling you how to play. When I do casual content I hardly even get to heal, it's just dps dps dps, because anything else is slowing down the kill. I don't want to play green dps I want to heal. If we didn't have dps, even if it means only pressing a button every 10 seconds, that would be more fun

Your problem I feel is one of two things:

The first is possibly the healing role isn't for you. As I said to the first part of your quote, the whole reason why we healer mains are drawn to the role is due to the added difficulty of precision management of our CDs on top of knowing the fight well. Healers have always been a stressful and demanding role in MMOs. There's a reason why DPS are more commonplace -

DPS only have to worry about positioning, what resources they have to manage, and their rotation (I'm sticking uptimes on buffs here btw).
Tanks have the above, plus mitigation, boss positioning (if there is any), and self sustain if they have.
Healers have the above (the dps part for clarity) plus keeping the party alive.

What people fail to realize, is that the more work your role/class puts into doing its job the more likely you're going to be forgiven when you mess up. Where you're seeing the whole "you should be doing this" argument is closer towards endgame when people feel like you should know your class and arguably you should.\

The other problem I feel you may have is you aren't experienced. And that is 100% fine. No one is going to care that you aren't optimizing in casual content. I know this, because I was in your position. For an entire year in the what near 3 years I've been playing this game, I was healing primarily with GCDs and I couldn't balance dps with healing. I learned, got better. Do I still dip into GCDs? Yes. Do I still struggle with dps and healing? Yes. Is that a problem? No. It never has been. There are many factors that can take place where I am healing more than dpsing:

- Tank's in low gear
- I'm in low gear
- Tank's mitigations aren't spread out well
- I'm healing, tired, when I shouldn't be
- Bardum's Mettle Wall to Wall
- Limited kit due to syncing down
- Dps is standing in the Azim Steppe when the rest of the party's in Vylbrand
- Dps/Tank is taking unnecessary damage
- Dps/I am pulling aggro off the tank
- The pull is too big for me/tank/dps to handle
- I'm in an alliance/raid where my cohealer is dead/dc'd
- I'm in an alliance raid where several of the healers are dead and need rezzing

Etc.

Learning how to heal and dps is for people for are more experienced and who are comfortable with their class. This isn't to say all you should be doing is just healing, yes you are encouraged to dps. However, what I am saying, what we've been continously saying is - if you are able to balance between dpsing and healing, if there is nothing for you to heal, don't just stand there and wait for damage, do damage.